


All Families Have That One Blanket

by Ceciliavonjoy



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Adoption, Crossover, Family Fluff, Found Family, Gen, My First Work in This Fandom, Not Canon Compliant, Protective Midoriya Inko, Supportive Midoriya Inko, i just wanted Shadow to be adopted okay? okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:20:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28538718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceciliavonjoy/pseuds/Ceciliavonjoy
Summary: Shadow hasn't quite cottoned on to the fact that he's been adopted.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	All Families Have That One Blanket

**Author's Note:**

> This AU was created solely to give myself an excuse to create Inko Mom content for my favorite edgy sonboy. He's an experimental high-end nomu that didn't turn out quite right; he isn't as crazy strong as you'd expect a high-end to be and needs mechanical support to live, but he has free will and the cool freaky glowing nomu eyes. Doctor Garaki did build him the mechanical supports he needed, but once Shadow didn't wanna work for AFO he was like Well Fuck You Then
> 
> Shout out to my bnha buddy for getting me attached to the characters (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!!).

Shadow woke up curled up on the couch in the Midoriya Family living room.

He coughed, hacking at gunk in his throat. He felt even worse than he had yesterday. Achy and tired and dizzy from a headache. Not that his body was _normally_ stable, but being this sick was making it worse. Even if his healing quirk did work on anything that wasn’t injuries, and it didn’t, he was far too tired to use it right now without blacking out. He shivered, pulling his one knit throw blanket tighter around him.

Were normal nomu even able to get sick…? He didn’t think so, given that they were corpses given Quirks. Just his luck, really.

Whatever was wrong with him, besides being ill, Shadow did not know. For an experimental high end nomu, he’d somehow turned out unacceptably weak. Weak at that scale was still several times stronger than most humans, but the doctor had still expressed disappointment with his strength.

Weak, and willful. He had been awake for a brief while after his creation, watching other experiments. Shadow remembered asking one day, why had he been created? The doctor smiled and answered that he was to serve someone named All For One, a god among men. 

But…why? Shadow had never met him. What did some guy he had never met want with him? Did he _have to_ listen to whoever that was?

Then he had been sealed up. Abandoned. 

The doctor had said that he loved his creations. Right. _Sure_ he did.

Shadow shivered again, pulling the blanket tighter around him. Ugh. Why was he still here? This was his fifth day at this house. Izuku, acting sort of against Shadow’s will actually, had made an tearful case to his mother to let him stay (“His home was destroyed, mom!”). That had to be the only reason he was here.

With that in mind, as pleasant as she seemed, the boy’s mother would eventually overrule her son and throw him back out. She had to have found out at some point what he was. Shadow fully intended on leaving once that day came. No need to resist and trouble Izuku any more than necessary.

But she hadn’t done it yet. If the day was today…his head throbbed with pain. That would not be ideal.

He looked up at a noise. Mrs. Midoriya walked into the living room. She wasn’t a terribly tall woman, but at his size she was a head bigger than him.

She came over to the couch, leaning forwards to get a look at him. “Oh, you’re awake!” she said with an air of pleasant surprise. “You weren’t looking so good last night. Are you sick?”

Another cough. “Yes,” he managed. His voice was scratchy.

She nodded. “I thought so…”

Hm. Nothing about him leaving. Still acting enough on Izuku’s behalf to keep him here. That was a relief.

She’d go and leave him alone to recover now. She hadn’t asked for him to be here. He was strong enough to handle that.

Instead, for some reason, she went right to his bedside. Shadow turned his head a little to watch her.

She stood by the side of the couch, looking down at Shadow with her big round eyes, like Izukus’. She was just tall enough to loom over him. “Do you want anything to eat?” She asked. “Some water?”

What? “…No." 

"No? Not hungry?”

He tried to subtly move away, into the couch cushion. “Mm-mn.”

Her brows lowered. “Oh…that’s not good.”

Then she moved suddenly and her hand came down onto his forehead. He flinched, startled. “Wh-What are you doing?”

“Huh?” She took back her hand once he jerked away, her round eyes staring down at him with confusion and concern. “I’m just feeling for a fever, Shadow. That’s all. Hold still, please?”

She can do that? Well…he didn’t see any way that could possibly hurt him. Non-nomus could only have one quirk, and a sensing quirk on its own would be harmless.

Shadow settled back down into the couch. “Mm-hm.”

He was prepared this time and stayed still. She felt his head, her fingers gently parting his stiff fur.

Being touched felt…it felt strange. His brows furrowed. It was a weird sensation. Not _bad,_ he thought,but weird. He wasn’t sure if he liked it or not. 

“You feel really warm.” She said, lifting her hand away. “I hope you’ve only got a cold.”

She wasn’t using a quirk…it was just temperature? He wormed one of his own hands out from under the covers to feel his head too. 

“Hm.” He could see what she meant. His skin felt hot there for some reason. But the rest of him was cold. Weird.

“How bad do you feel?” She asked. “Do you think you’ve got the flu, or just a cold?”

He had no idea what that meant. Why was she asking? “I don’t know.” Shadow shivered, and tried to nestle into the couch with his blanket. The damn thing being knit made it basically a net that let most of the warmth out. He only had it because it had been within reach.

“Oh, you must be freezing,” Mrs. Midoriya said, genuinely sounding distressed. “Wait just a minute!”

Shadow stared at her retreating back as she hurried down the hall to the bedrooms. What was she doing? Her actions weren’t making sense. She did know he was a nomu, didn’t she?

He was still puzzling it over a few minutes later when Inko came back. She was holding a folded, brown and grey plaid blanket.

“Here you go!” She said. “It’s scratchy, but really warm.” She let it unfold in a stiffened cascade, dividing it roughly in half over her hands. Then she lay the doubled blanket on top of him. He tugged on it a little to bring it up to his face, and shifted to get the sides underneath him and trap heat. 

He lay still again. In a moment, he was feeling a little better. She hadn’t been lying, it WAS warm. 

“I should get you your own bed,” Mrs. Midoriya fretted, “so you don’t have to keep sleeping on the couch.”

Shadow coughed. His own what? “I’m fine here.” He liked the couch; he could keep an eye on things from this spot. Just in case.

“Still, you get no privacy out here…” She looked around the living room, judging the space.

Shadow breathed in to speak. “Why are you doing this?”

“Huh?” Mrs. Midoriya said, her attention snapping back to him. “Why am I doing what?”

“Hovering over me." 

What he was precluded any possibility of anyone accepting him. _Almost_ anyone. Izuku did, but that boy cared about everyone. It was honestly absurd. A pair of heroes had chased Shadow down to kill him like the rest. His power equaled theirs but his stamina did not; he had been beaten and pinned to the ground when Izuku appeared. Shadow had assumed that at best he would stand there and watch, if he didn’t just join in.

Then Izuku had cried out for the two heroes to stop. When they hadn’t, he physically forced the issue. Absolutely nobody else would have done that. Done that and then invited him home, AFTER learning he was a nomu. 

"Izuku isn’t here.” A brief coughing fit made him stop talking. His voice was rougher afterwards. “No need to fake anything.”

“What are you _talking_ about?” Mrs. Midoriya asked, befuddled. “You’re sick, of course I’m caring for you. It’s just part of my job as a parent.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “How badly have you been treated?!”

Oh. Now she’s crying for some reason. Uh. Okay. “Just normally,” Shadow said slowly, gripping the blankets and backing into the couch cushion. She had gotten closer. He felt like she was about to do something and it was making him nervous. “I’m a nomu, so it’s onlY–!" 

He yelped when she dove at him. Shadow flailed when he suddenly found himself up in the air, taking quick rough gasps of air.

He and his breathing soon calmed down. She wasn’t hurting him. Her big soft arms had him surrounded, blankets and all, but were keeping him from falling too. 

Mrs. Midoriya was sobbing now. "You poor boy! You didn’t deserve that!” She sniffed. “Izuku…told me how he found you.”

Ah. That. “It was reasonable that they would think I was an enemy.”

 _“Trying to kill you_ when you haven’t _done anything_ is NOT reasonable!” Another sob. She breathed in to steady her voice enough to speak. “Listen…its wrong to hurt people just for who they are. Izuku knows what that’s like…that’s why…”

Her voice broke again. “I couldn’t do anything about it. Or…maybe I just thought I couldn’t. I should’ve tried harder, for his sake…”

“Izuku?” That made no sense. A child with enough power and fame that pro heroes knew about him, ostracized and beaten down? One of his two tormentors had even said something about All-Might being Izuku’s mentor. _All-Might!_ Shadow had spent most of his life under a rock in an underground lab and he knew who All-Might was. 

“He’s becoming a hero.” Bitterness entered Shadow’s voice. Heroes had everything handed to them. “What does he know about that kind of pain?" 

"Izuku didn’t _have a Quirk_ two years ago!” She wailed. “He’s such a brave boy, he would have tried to be a hero even without one, but…” She sniffed, her voice wobbling. “The way things are, the whole _world_ would’ve been against him.”

That was…startling information. Two years ago. Two years ago Izuku was some nobody. That isn’t a long time. He’d thought everyone had a Quirk. To be born without one into a sea of powered people…how old _is_ Izuku? How long did he have to struggle against the tide? 

“…I understand now,” Shadow said grimly. 

Mrs. Midoriya took a few deep breaths to calm down again. Her arms tightened around him just slightly.

“So, you see…neither of us want you to suffer through that too.” The pressure from one arm went away. Her hand ran down one of his quills. “It’s your choice, but if you want to stay, you’ll always be welcome here.”

It was a moment before Shadow replied. “…I can…” He spoke slowly, not quite keeping the disbelief out of his voice. “…choose? Whether I stay?" 

"Yeah, of course.” She said warmly. “You’re practically family already.”

Family? He was _family?_

Shadow breathed in sharply, blinking. His eyes had started stinging. Everything he was feeling right now was too much. He had never been so glad to be wrong. This woman was just… overwhelmingly loving.

He understands now. Izuku’s kindness came from his mother.

He should…answer her somehow. Shadow breathed in to speak. 

It caught in his throat and he ended up in another coughing fit.

“Oh! Right, I’m sorry, you’re sick!” Mrs. Midoriya said, flustered. “Nevermind, here, I’ll let you down.”

She was so flurried, Shadow instinctively struggled to free his pinned arms from the blankets to hang on to her, thinking she might drop him. 

Thankfully, she didn’t. Mrs. Midoriya gently shifted him in her arms onto his back, his head resting on her elbow and her other arm supporting his legs and body. He stopped struggling to free himself, and instead hung on to the blankets to keep them from sliding off. She cradled him in this way for a moment, and lowered him to the couch, sliding her arms out from under him to let him down. 

Shadow was a little impressed that she could hold him up like that. Did she have a strength quirk? 

With still-watery eyes, Inko smiled at him. “Don’t worry about deciding anything important yet, alright? All you should focus on right now is resting and getting better.” She wiped her eyes. “I’ll be in the house all day, so just yell if you need anything, little guy.”

Though he was exhausted and aching, Shadow found himself smiling too. He felt warmed. “Yes, Mrs. Midoriya.”


End file.
